Ohio speaker battle simmers

Rep. Jim Butler, R-Oakwood, and Rep. Cliff Rosenberger, R-Clarksville, before the 2012 State of the State address. The two are facing off for Ohio House speaker in the 2015-14 General Assembly.(Photo: Provided)

COLUMBUS A Dayton-area candidate for Ohio House speaker is claiming support from a majority of Southwest Ohio Republicans, as he asserts his viability in the race to be one of Ohio's top three elected officials.

State Rep. Jim Butler, R-Oakwood, has refused to back Clinton County Rep. Cliff Rosenberger since the Clarksville Republican last week emerged as the frontrunner in the race for Ohio's speaker of the House.

Instead, Butler on Tuesday said his group had gained support from two other coalitions. His supporters said they envisioned an "open" Republican caucus that would set strategic goals with Republican Gov. John Kasich, instead of merely responding to the governor's agenda or following the whims of political personalities.

Ohio's next House speaker will largely control which legislation comes up for a vote in the 99-member chamber. A speaker candidate would need majority support among House Republicans, who number 60 in the current General Assembly.

Both Butler and Rosenberger have declined to discuss the exact number of supporters in their coalitions. But Butler's supporters are expected to number in the mid-20s -- including most of the Republicans from Greater Cincinnati -- and Rosenberger's close to 40, after the Clinton County Republican last week gained the backing of another rival candidate.

Butler now claims support from the archconservatives who had banded together under state Rep. Kristina Roegner, R-Hudson, along with some expected newcomers to the Ohio House, led by Urbana's Nino Vitale, a tea party-endorsed Republican who is running unopposed in the November election.

With the new commitments, Republicans are largely split into two groups. Rosenberger claims the numerical edge -- more than 60 percent of Republicans likely to be elected to the 2015-16 Ohio House, he says. But the candidates have four months until the actual vote, which will take place after the November elections.

Until then, "anything can happen," Butler told The Enquirer. "We don't even know who's going to win the election and be able to vote. People can change their mind."

The House speaker's race once held half a dozen candidates, some of whom have moved to back either Rosenberger or Butler. But some state representatives may be unwilling to follow those candidates as they align themselves with frontrunners. For example, Rep. Ron Amstutz, R-Wooster, last week formed a coalition with Rosenberger, but Amstutz was expected to lose a handful of his supporters as a result.

In addition, the Rosenberger-Amstutz alliance came at the encouragement of Speaker Bill Batchelder, R-Medina, who is overseeing House Republicans' re-election efforts this fall. Republican candidates who face close races in November and who are counting on campaign money from caucus leaders may be reluctant to take a side or to oppose Rosenberger until after the election.

Batchelder has personal experience with the shakiness of early alliances in House leadership races. In 2008, then-Rep. Matt Dolan, a Northeast Ohio Republican, claimed the early lead in the race to lead the GOP caucus. Come November, however, Republican state representatives elected Batchelder as their leader, not Dolan.

Still, Rosenberger insists his lead is large enough to hold come November.

"The reason that Rep. Amstutz and I came together as a group is because between both of us, we realized we had a majority of the caucus," he said.

Kasich's staff claims to be neutral in the race for speaker, who controls which parts of the governor's agenda -- especially budget items -- see the floor in the House. But state capitol insiders have long pointed to Rosenberger as the governor's choice for speaker.

On Tuesday, Butler's supporters envisioned a GOP caucus that worked with the Senate and the governor to set out an agenda before the legislative session began, rather than responding to the governor's agenda.

"Having a strategic plan and a set of principles under which we operate is a way that the Legislature can lead, which is what we're supposed to do, and be great partners with the governor," Butler said.

One of Butler's chief supporters, Rep. Louis Terhar of Green Township, said the governor's conflict with the Legislature over Medicaid would go differently if Butler were speaker.

The governor last year bypassed the full Legislature and used the seven-member Controlling Board to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, much to the dismay of many Republicans. In May, the conflict emerged again, as conservatives temporarily held up a vote on a tax cut over worries that Kasich was creating a $300 million Medicaid reserve to extend the health care program to more low-income Ohioans.

"We're all Republicans; we're not in any way opposed to the governor. But we believe we should all talk about these things beforehand," Terhar said. "Had that been talked about before it came at the last minute, it would not have been something that was even newsworthy. It would have been worked out ahead of time."

Rosenberger said the House can still work as an independent body while allowing the governor to introduce agenda items. He pointed to the House's move in 2013 to kill a massive sales-tax expansion proposed by Kasich as a way to pay for an income-tax cut.

"Just because the governor is proffering the budget bill doesn't mean that we can't make changes," Rosenberger said.